Mediated identity construction across cultures : an analysis of reports on the Guguletu Seven

This thesis has been written as a research project within a programme that topicalises intercultural communication in fairly broad terms. It provides an analysis of the different constructions in the media of events and people by journalists from different linguistic communities who have regular intercultural contact in the course of reporting on local newsworthy events. The communities here are different media producers, different news publishing institutions who print and circulate current news to audiences in different language communities. Illustratively, attention will go to the particular role players in the media, i.e. news producers (journalists, newspapers, publishing groups), newsmakers (people whose actions are observed and topicalised in the media) and news consumers (the audience, readership) engaged in reporting on a particular, prominently mediated event in 1986, and again in 1996. The event that is now recorded as the Guguletu Seven incident is investigated for the way in which it can highlight cultural linguistic differences in mediating the same event.